They also had an expression called « travailler comme un nègre » which is used to decsribe someone who overworksand is badly paid, someone who is exploited. It is also used to describe exploitation of one's self, overworking and not taking a break.

A French perfume maker Jean-Paul Guerlain was convicted and fined €6,000 in March 2012 for using this expression on national television. During a TV interview in October 2010 on France-2 television, Guerlain, an heir to his family’s cosmetics empire, was asked to explain how he worked to create Samsara, one of the company’s most famous fragrance.

« And for once, I started working like a negro. I don’t know if negroes ever worked that hard, but anyway... »

This provoked anger amongst French black community who called for a boycott of all Guerlain products.

Guerlain apoloogised to blacks during the trial saying he deeply regrets his words and that he is anything but racist. He explained that the first part of his phrase was an expression he heard often while growing up (he was born on the 9th of january 1937), while the second part was an idiocy on my part as he was only trying to make the interviewer laugh. He also added it was through black US soldiers in France at the end of World War II that he discovered chewing gum and Coca Cola.

Today in France, it's politically incorrrect to use any of these old names or the word « nègre » itself.